Bill gives teachers right to search students' lockers

Wednesday

May 23, 2007 at 12:01 AMMay 23, 2007 at 11:23 PM

SPRINGFIELD -- Teachers would be allowed to search students’ lockers and personal effects on school grounds without warrants and without notifying or getting consent from the students, under legislation the Illinois Senate passed unanimously.

Jeremy Pelzer

By JEREMY PELZER

STATE CAPITOL BUREAU

SPRINGFIELD -- Teachers would be allowed to search students’ lockers and personal effects on school grounds without warrants and without notifying or getting consent from the students, under legislation the Illinois Senate passed unanimously.

House Bill 3730 specifies that school officials must have “reasonable suspicion” that they will find illegal drugs, weapons or other dangerous materials and substances.

School authorities are already allowed to conduct warrantless searches on school grounds. But Sen. Matt Murphy, a Chicago Democrat who sponsored the bill in the Senate, said teachers needed to have that power as well.

Ed Yohnka, a spokesman for the American Civil Liberties Union of Illinois, said the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in the 1980s that school officials have the right to conduct searches on school grounds without warrants or consent. Giving teachers the same right, he said, isn’t that noteworthy.

But Yohnka argued that no one should have the right to search a student’s bag or locker without a warrant or permission from the student.

“Students in a school should not have a lowered expectation of privacy simply because they’re at school,” he said. “We send them to a building to learn about the Bill of Rights, but then say the Bill of Rights doesn’t apply to them there.”

The bill, approved Tuesday, now goes to Gov. Rod Blagojevich to be signed into law.

Jeremy Pelzer can be reached at (217) 782-3095 or at jeremy.pelzer@sj-r.com.